Well, I think it's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything here and even more since I posted anything crafty - oops! It seems that time is running so fast these days that I blink and two weeks are gone (either that or I'm getting just r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w...;) ). I have managed to craft a bit, mainly some birthday cards and such that I had to make but I haven't really had time to blog hop either but hopefully I'll get there eventually. Perhaps when our garden (which we have started from scratch this year) is looking a bit better... It still needs a lawn (!), some plants and at least a swing set and a sandbox for our sweet boy, hopefully we'll get it all done soon.

I'll stop waffling now and show you three cards I made for my nephew who turned 9. His greatgrandmother gave him one of these cards, his grandparents gave one and we gave one, so that's why I made three ;) I made the background for this first one by heat embossing an Impression Obsession background stamp with black powder and applying some blue Distress Stain on top. I coloured the stamped image (the dashing Chester by Kraftin' Kimmie) with DIs, and 'rusted' the gear behind him with DIs and some embossing powder. The sentiment says (freely translated), 'To the smashing guy'. As embellies there are only a couple of screw brads and some Tim Holtz film strip ribbon.

The background paper in this second card was a plain one so I decided to add some DI through a Crafter's Workshop stencil to it. I also added a few strips of washi tapes. The boy stamp is by Nina Åslund, I coloured it with ProMarkers and added some Glossy Accents to his eyes. The stars stamp is by Artistic Stamper and the sentiment says basically 'Congrats'. To finish the card off, I added some tiny staples to the corners.

The last card features a beaver in his swimming trunks... :) The stamped image is Belvedere by DoodleFactory, I coloured him with ProMarkers and added some Glossy Accents to his swimming trunks and eyes. The little flags are heat embossed with white embossing powder and 'attached' with brads, the stamp is by FinnStamper. The number 9 is die cut from cardboard covered with washi tape with a Tim Holtz die. As other embellies there are stars punched with a Fiskars punch and some dotty washi tape. The dotty paper is by Echo Park, I added some white Distress Crackle Paint to the edges of the cardboard square in the middle (idea came from SannaS).